The Outdoor Gibbon

9. Empire Cartridges

• The Outdoor Gibbon • Season 1 • Episode 9

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0:00 | 22:14

***Remastered this is fresh update to the Outdoor Gibbon Podcast ***

From product design engineer to shotgun cartridge innovator, Andrew's journey building Empire Cartridges reveals the perfect blend of engineering expertise and shooting passion. What began as a father-son project in 2017 has evolved into a thriving business proudly serving enthusiast shooters who value personal connection with manufacturers.

The road wasn't easy. Andrew describes the 18-month process of securing explosive manufacturing licenses from the Health and Safety Executive—where specific building distances and strict regulations create the primary barrier to entry in this industry. Rather than competing directly with industry giants, Empire carved its own path as a grassroots brand offering flexibility and customization that larger manufacturers simply can't provide.

Despite launching commercially just three years ago—with two of those during pandemic restrictions—Empire has thrived through automation innovation. Andrew's engineering background shines through their custom packaging systems, reflecting a core philosophy: "We don't want to be employing people on minimum wage. We'll employ people on good money for doing valuable tasks." This mindset extends to their forward-thinking approach to the looming lead ban.

While some manufacturers fear the transition away from lead, Empire embraces it. By mid-2023, they plan to be "wholly a steel shotgun or non-toxic manufacturer," already developing clay loads 30-40% cheaper than lead equivalents. Their most exciting innovation? A partnership producing patented biodegradable wads that naturally decompose within six months while remaining stable in shooting conditions—technology they plan to offer to home loaders and other manufacturers.

Try Empire Cartridges for yourself and experience the difference personal attention to manufacturing makes. Available in slabs of 250 or by the thousand, with competitive pricing that improves with volume, these cartridges represent the future of sustainable, high-quality shooting supplies from a company that genuinely understands what shooters need.


Check out https://www.empirecartridges.com/ 

Don't for get to mention that The Outdoor Gibbon podcast when you come to purchase 

They are well worth a look and great for the up and coming game season 

Enjoy

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Speaker 2:

Hello and welcome to the Outdoor Gibbon episode 9. Finally managed to tie Empire cartridges down, obviously both being quite busy and with all his technical difficulties, the recording was started this morning and we got quite a lot of information down. Halfway through, I think, he had to take a delivery or fill up the forklift, so there might be a bit of a break and a bit of a continuity issue, but hopefully that shouldn't be noticeable throughout the podcast. But we covered a few good points and, yeah, let's get this podcast started. Hello and welcome to the outdoor giving podcast today. Finally, we've managed to catch up with andrew, the owner of empire cartridges. Uh, it's been a bit difficult because obviously he's a busy boy and lots of things going on and we've had a few technical difficulties along the way. Anyway, uh, let's get started. And, andrew, can you give us sort of a bit of background about yourself and how you brought a cartridge company to life?

Speaker 3:

So I was originally a product design engineer and the cartridges were started. It was really me and my father who started the business. Um, it was a project we sort of thought about back in. Well, I've been thinking about it since maybe 2010, but only really got around to bringing it to life and sort of starting the process in 2017 okay, so it's kind of sat in the pipeline for quite some time then yeah, it's been something that's been always talked about and on the cards for probably like I say, probably since like 2009, 2010.

Speaker 3:

On the basis that it's, you know, there's a relative. Once you get past the sort of marketing side of things, shot and Grash is a relatively simple product, and so we felt like a streamlining of what was available. There was a space in the market for something that was just almost like a no-nonsense brand of it's a. This is a cartridgeose, this is the way, this is what it does, um, and that's sort of where we're positioning ourselves with it. So, um, fortunately, the. The barriers to setting up a shotgun garage company are the fact you need to be, uh, regulated by the health and safety reserve and they regulate all the and because your basic manufacturing explosive. So to meet all their regulations, you need quite a specific site to operate from is that just because of like having to store powder and etc.

Speaker 3:

Etc yeah, so all your buildings have to be a certain distance apart. Um, and then you've got to get other licenses for storing it and importing it, and that's really a main barrier to setting up a cartridge company. The machinery, the components are all pretty readily available. It's just a case of investment. But if you can't find the site and you would have to find the site before applying to the license, so if you don't already own the site, it's a bigger investment up front to not potentially not even be able to start so I'm assuming you, you had a, had a site, or you knew of somewhere that was um, that was ideal for we already have a site that we thought would possibly work.

Speaker 3:

So basically the first that in the journey was we'll see if we can get the license to do it, and that was probably the first 18. So after the her owning in all african stuff and messing around and doing that kind of you know, and they're getting into it and thinking, yeah, we could probably do this commercially. And the second stage is right, can we? Can we get the license to operate and set the company up on? And that probably took 18 months, I reckon, to get from application to um getting the license on what we call a fixed rules license. So the hsc have a set of criteria and if you can comply with those criteria it's a relatively simple application process.

Speaker 3:

If you can't, then you have to start paying them to come up with methods for you to comply which is a very expensive process, which is how a lot of the existing manufacturers will be operating, because they've got like their legacy site and things like that.

Speaker 2:

So they'll have to probably do more in the way of infrastructure to make sure that they are complying with the requirements of the hse so that that kind of brings us on to sort of the second question is like how are you competing against some of the sort of the bigger players like gamebore and ely and things like that? Where's your standing in the market, do you think?

Speaker 3:

so we're not, in a way we're not really competition for them and we obviously it's a it's a it's a market that isn't growing. So any sales we make come from somebody else. But I would say we are. We get the sales from the people who maybe want to deal on a more personal basis with the manufacturer and with a company that are a bit more grassroots. So we're a cartridge brand for the enthusiast shooter. So for the person who's really into it and knows what they want and sort of wants that more personal touch, I would say that's where we are at the minute I suppose that's how we came came to deal with you quite a lot, obviously buying large bulk cartridges and shipping up to scotland.

Speaker 2:

It was always a bit of a can you make a following load like a 24 gram five or something like that. We've got some people that want to shoot that for game and I think that was it. You were.

Speaker 3:

You were very accommodating and to be for the big part of the car, bit't be because they've got a much bigger operation. And if every time someone phoned up and said I want 10,000 20-year-old fads, you stop the machine, it'd be an absolute nightmare for them.

Speaker 2:

I can imagine that, but how's your standing, do you reckon, in the market? Do you think?

Speaker 3:

you've got a good customer base now. That's pushing you forward, forward, I think. So, yeah, and I think we've got a reasonably good reputation out there and, um, we're not challenging anyone yet but it's a long road. We've only been at it for probably three years. Proper, you know in a big way, you know proper commercially, and two of those have been, um, not the best for selling things.

Speaker 2:

I would say I was gonna say that that crazy that brings me on to sort of that was the next sort of question how is the business going? Obviously, you say three years and two of those are bang smack in the middle of, um, the pandemic which which kind of put a halt to, uh, shooting and game sports and things like that. So, yeah, how are you coping with that sort of situation?

Speaker 3:

For us it's not a big deal to upscale and downscale. You know, if the man goes down, we just reduce the production. If it goes up, we increase the production because we're not that loaded out and it's as automated as it can be.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you obviously post a lot of pictures on social media of your automation and and packaging machines and stuff like that, so is that something that you've had a hand in in customizing and designing?

Speaker 3:

yeah, so we've built all that ourselves the packaging side of things and having a lot to do with that because, really, because the the commercial solutions available are very expensive and not really geared up for what we're trying to do and don't do enough and not automated enough. Um, and what I don't want to be doing is paying people minimum wage to pack shotgun cartridges. It's not really where we want to be. We don't want to be employing people on minimum wage. We'll employ people on good money for doing valuable tasks yes, no, absolutely.

Speaker 2:

At the end of the day it's it's better to have a machine and play anybody.

Speaker 3:

So it's better to either automate it or employ someone to do something good. You know it's adding a lot of value. You can pay them a good amount of money around the sort of a minimum wage job.

Speaker 2:

No, it's not where we want to be that sounds good, so that I suppose the burning question obviously we've got a cartridge company, you, you've started up three years ago. You've gone through the pandemic and then, um, the, the, the world press kind of announced that there's a potential lead ban on the way. Um, obviously most of empire cartridges that we see on the market at the moment are are all lead based. Um, you have started doing something with copper. Um, but uh, yeah, where's the future for empire going with with this lead ban looming?

Speaker 3:

so for us the plan is probably by the middle of next year will be wholly a steel shotgun or non-toxic manufacturer. It will probably fade out lead mostly if maybe we'll probably be doing it, continuing for a few clay cartridges, maybe very specialist game loads for people who really want them, and it will have paid a premium. But by and large it will be a predominantly steel based market and I say that because from the clay side of things it's not out, it's not out there to buy.

Speaker 3:

Yet we've got a clay steel load that is, you know, a good load and it'll be very, it's a very competitive thing price wise. But the clay shooters come to the price of clay cartridges, again very expensive.

Speaker 2:

So yeah, it used to be quite. You could go and do clays and it was quite cheap. And then suddenly, all of a sudden, by the time you've got the clays and a box of cartridges, suddenly the price is um, yeah, it's not. Not as cheap as it used to be as a weekend sport, was it?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so we can do like a plastic-watered clay jump clay plastic seal. For me, you know not half the price of the lead cartridge, but probably 30 or 40% lax. That sounds good. So you're going to get to pretty much wholly biodegradable ones. So there'll be a steel plate cartridge with a biodegradable plastic one and then there'll be the game cartridges with the biodegradable plastic ones.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, because at the moment your lead cartridges are all fibre, but you have got some biodegradable gas seals in there. Is that right?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, that's right yeah.

Speaker 2:

Because you obviously get we always get asked questions about these little plastic discs. It's like no, they're, they're a compostable, a compostable gas seal, aren't they?

Speaker 3:

yeah, and the material we're using it's not a industrial compostable material like some is garren certified, tested, but it will compost in soil so it's not going to disappear in two or three weeks. You know that it's not going to happen, but it is going to go within six weeks, for six months, depending on the environment, and by next season it will have disappeared into the ground and speaking, and even on top of the ground you can see them, you start to break down and you can tear them apart. So it's a, it is something that is definitely. It's as good as the fiber rod in terms of degradation times yeah.

Speaker 2:

So at least we can say to keepers and things like that that see them on the ground and don't worry about it. It it is actually compostable, it will break down. Because I think that's the biggest thing. I think we had a load of cartridges and then I had people asking questions about these little plastic discs and it's like I think I was pinging you messages just on the shoot day going are they biodegradable? And you're like, yeah, no, they do break down.

Speaker 3:

Everything's fine there, don't worry you don't bother putting it in a cup of water because it will just stay there for a long time. They do. They do degrade in water as long as there's like bacteria in there, so it will go. But if you put it in a cup of you know, sterile tap water, it will stay there forever. It will will just stay there quite happily. Yeah, because it's designed to be stable in wet conditions, so it's not going to be something that if it gets damp, it's going to start to degrade, in the case. Or if you keep it in a moist environment, it's not going to degrade, in the case.

Speaker 2:

Okay, yeah, yeah, because that was obviously always a problem with old paper cartridges, wasn't it? If you got them damp, that was it they were. They were pretty much done, they were work.

Speaker 3:

You know that's the problem. We tried some water soluble wads and found that the material when we loaded it, it was just.

Speaker 2:

It was too unstable for us to load consistently and put out a stable product when you say, say, a water-soluble wad, is that like a plastic wad that is designed to break down when it gets wet?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so you could drop it in a cup of water and it would dissolve into mush.

Speaker 2:

I think there have been problems, haven't there, with other cartridge manufacturers, with these, where they've kind of got damp and they turn into like a solid block and everything gets stuck together and it's almost like shooting a slug at the end of the day yeah, yeah, there's been a few it's you know it's not a new thing and what so?

Speaker 3:

well, what it's been around for probably 10 years, if not more longer, and it's always, that's always been the issue. With a pva based wad, that right, trying to make, trying to make sure it remains stable throughout the lifetime of the cartridge, is a challenge because obviously you could have a cartridge and load it today and it would still fire in 10 years from now. They're not a product that has a shelf life, really the powder. They might not be quite as fast, but on the whole, you are going to know the difference as a shooter. In my opinion yeah, no, no absolutely, yeah, really really.

Speaker 3:

You know it's better than loaded, so they're pretty new, but you could be on this bother cartridge that's 10 years, 20 years old.

Speaker 2:

It's still going to do the job for you well, looking at some of the shooters that, uh, that I spend time with, they've got cartridges that date back to the 60s that they pull out occasionally on shoot days and stuff like that. So, yeah, we're we're looking at cartridges that have been kicking around for a long, long time but they still go bang at the end of the day and things still fall out the air. But, uh, I suppose it's just, yeah, it's having that cartridge that you at least put it in your, in your shotgun and you pull the trigger and it does go bang rather than does nothing yeah, um, well, exactly, there is that always is, there's a is a major concern, isn't it, at the end of the day?

Speaker 2:

um, so sort of taking on that going forward? It's like you were talking about these biodegradable wads. So is that something that you, as a company, have looked into manufacturing, or are you looking to just buy them in from somewhere?

Speaker 3:

so we're partnered with a conjecture molding company here. We've done the development work with um and we've got a patient on molding the material. So it's a. It's a material that can be molded into other things. So it's kind of a partnership in as much as we're going to make wands and then it'll grow into other products. We will probably end up doing the wad manufacturing here on the site, um, by our cartridges. Uh, once we get the two in all sorted out, we'll bring it to here and then they can carry on making all the other products that they make um. But it is something that is unique to us, um, as a manufacturer, because we've done the development work with Moulding Company.

Speaker 2:

So this is kind of going to put Empire slightly one step ahead potentially of all your competitors out there.

Speaker 3:

Well, at least put us on par with the ones who've got their own WOD, to be honest, and then can sort of move into all the you know, all the gauges and other sizes then as well okay, yeah, because obviously that that was a sort of another thing.

Speaker 2:

I think we get a lot of questions um, whenever we're trying to put orders together, people wanting to know whether or not you're going to make anything other than sort of 12 ball cartridges yeah, we are.

Speaker 3:

It's the plan and also the wads, the probably that the wad company will be possibly a separate entity, so that people will be possibly a separate entity, so people will be able to buy those separate to Empire Carthage. So, although it's proprietary to us, we are going to sell them. It's going to be an entity on its own that is going to be a wad manufacturer.

Speaker 2:

Okay, so does that mean like the home loader could come to you and buy 1,000?

Speaker 3:

wads or or something like that? Or is it just going to be, yeah, exactly, yeah, they can have a thousand, they can buy them. You know the website and also another manufacturer want to load them, we'll sell them to them as well. But it's not a. We're not going to keep it and try and make it, so you have to have the wad and the biodegradable element of it. You've got to buy our cars because someone else wants to load them with their powder combination, um and shot combination. Then that's fine as well that's fantastic.

Speaker 2:

So at least it's another, it's sort of another arm to the business. That basically means that if, if game shooting does start to slow down a bit, um, and the clay shooting kicks off and people want to home, load again and and go down that route, at least you've got something that that keeps you, keeps you going, I suppose, isn't it exactly? Yeah, oh, very good, very good. So, um, I think we've covered well. So you don't. You, you've got no real panics about sort of the, the imminent lead ban. You're well and truly keeping cool and, under control, moving forward, I take it yeah, yes, for me, I'm not worried about it.

Speaker 3:

The powders, all the powder we use is relatively suitable for a transition to steel. Our supplier has some more good steel powders. It's easy to get them. They're not ridiculous, so it's not at the minute. So, yeah, I'm pretty happy about it all.

Speaker 2:

Because I think that was one thing. Your powder is a bit of a special mix, isn't it? That it's unlike a lot of other powders out there it's, it's um it's slightly different in the in the empire cartridges at the moment.

Speaker 3:

So we use double base powder, which is similar, which most people other company manufacturers use single base powder and game balls, the alliant steel powder I think that's a double base powder and a lot of the american powders are double base, but that's the main difference and it really just takes up less volume in the case and it can be dirtier. That is. That is the only thing I would say we just have is a bit.

Speaker 2:

You get some more, not unburnt powder, but powder residue unfortunately andrew got called away to take a delivery and we kind of ended the podcast there. But he was just talking about the powder residue in the cartridges and anybody that shot the empire cartridges, especially the lighter loads, will notice that their barrels are slightly dirtier than shooting other cartridges. Again, it's nothing to worry about. It's just a bit of sort of powder residue up the barrels. But if you like, clean clean barrels after you've shot a load of cartridges, obviously it's a bit of a shock when you look down your barrels and notice there there's sort of flakes of black and things like that in them. But it doesn't have any ill effect on the actual shooting and the cartridges work really well. I think we tried to get Andrew back but unfortunately he was either taking a delivery or just work kicked in and that was that. So we'll try and catch up with him at some other point and have another chat with Empire, but we did cover quite a few things there. Have another chat with with empire, but we did cover quite a few things there. We obviously covered the the future of the cartridges, how they're moving away to completely steel and hopefully we will see their new wad hit the market, which will be quite interesting because obviously anybody that's out there that does their own loading of shotgun cartridges will get the opportunity to buy a biodegradable wad from a locally UK manufactured company.

Speaker 2:

Well, that was the interview with Empire Cart cartridges. Sorry it was cut short, but uh, andrew obviously got called away to to do other things. If there's any questions or anybody has anything they want to ask, either pop onto the empire cartridges social media pages and fire away, go and have a look at their cartridges. They are very reasonably priced and actually they are coming in cheaper than some of the leading manufacturers. You can buy a slab 250 cartridges or you can buy by the thousand, up to whatever your limit wants to be. Again, they will always do a good price and the more you buy, the better the price gets. So it's certainly worth having a look at. If you've got a syndicate or you have a group of mates that want to shoot a nice cartridge, I would strongly recommend having a look at the Empire Ones. Thanks for listening again and we will catch you in the near future with another podcast.